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   <TITLE>OSCOMAK - Open Source Community On Manufacturing Knowledge</TITLE>
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"Every truly great accomplishment <br>
is at first impossible." 
<br>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; -- Chinese proverb
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The OSCOMAK project will foster a community in which many interested individuals
will contribute to the creation of a distributed global repository of manufacturing
knowledge about past, present and future processes, materials, and products. OSCOMAK stands for Open Source Community On Manufacturing Knowledge.
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The project's short-term benefits will include:
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<li>technology education,
<li>historical education,
<li>collaboration,
<li>sustainable technology development,
<li>public science literacy, and 
<li>knowledge democratization. 
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The project's ultimate long-term
goal will be to generate a repository of knowledge that will support the
design and creation of space settlements. Three forces -- individual
creativity, social collaboration, and technological tools -- will join to
create a synergistic effort stronger than any of these forces could produce
alone. We hope to use the internet to produce an effect somewhat 
like that described in "The Skills
of Xanadu" by Theodore Sturgeon (available in his book 
<em>The Golden Helix</em>).
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We will develop software tools to enable the creation
of this knowledge repository: to collect, organize, and present information
in a way that encourages collaboration and provides immediate benefit.
Manufacturing "recipes" will form the core elements of the repository.
We will also seed the repository, interact with participants, and oversee
the evolution of the repository. 
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You can read a paper we presented on this project in the Proceedings of the Thirteenth SSI/Princeton Conference on Space Manufacturing 
May 7-9, 2001, which we have made available on the web:
<a href="http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/SSI_Fernhout2001_web.html">here</a>. The slides for the presentation are <a href="http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/KFReviewPaperForSSIConference2001.pdf">here</a>.
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You can read an essay on how to to find the financing to create a "Star Trek" like society <a href="http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/AchievingAStarTrekSociety.html">here</a>.
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We invite you to peruse the pages in this web area and contact us at pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com if you are interested in participation and/or collaboration.
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